


He? She? Them?

by Pollarize



Category: Bandom, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alcohol, Frustration, Gen, Gender Issues, Genderfluid, Genderqueer, Panic Attacks, Questioning, Trans, Transgender, Walmart, im sorry, this is horrible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 04:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5571658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollarize/pseuds/Pollarize
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Walmart seems to be the place to have a gender crisis</p>
            </blockquote>





	He? She? Them?

**Author's Note:**

> im really sorry about this. i was having a panic attack and ended up writing this to avoid my own problems. hardcore projecting on josh. this also wasn't really edited. i looked over it but im at that tired numb part of panic attacks so im the least capable of editing right now. sorry if it's worded weird or typos or all that im sorry

Josh sat in the middle of a Walmart parking lot with his eyes closed. 

 

It was three in the morning and he wasn’t sure how he’d gotten there but suddenly he was. He didn’t realize how cold it was until he’d sat down and forgotten his jacket. Josh was shaking, teeth chattering, but he didn’t get up. Instead he reached into his pocket with numb fingers and pulled out his phone. It took him five tries to dial the number but finally he managed and he held the phone to his ear, wincing as the cold casing of it touched his cheek.

 

_ “What the fuck, Josh? It’s three in the morning why are you calling me?”  _ Tyler answered, annoyed that he’d been woken. Josh swallowed as he tried to find his voice.

 

“Can you help me?” He asked, his voice coming out thick and cracking. He didn’t know when he started to cry but the wind was stinging his cheeks more now than it did before.

 

_ “Josh, where are you?”  _ Tyler asked, sounding more awake and concerned than he had a minute ago. Josh looked around to try and figure out which Walmart he was at. His whole body shook this time and he wasn’t sure if it was because of the cold or the panic that flared up in him.

 

“I-I’m at the hundred-ninety-second Walmart,” he mumbled, watching a car in the distance drive down the road. The headlights looked like they had rays coming off of them in all directions. He couldn’t focus his eyes through the tears. 

 

_ “Give me five minutes, okay? Don’t move.” _

 

Josh sat there like he was told, not moving except for the shaking that didn’t stop as hard as he tried to get it to. He looked around again, trying to find out how he’d gotten there in the first place. His car was nowhere to be seen and it was quite a long walk from his house. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t breathe.

 

He brought his knees to his chest and folded his arms over top, burying his face in his arms. He was sobbing now, unsure what anything was.

 

There was the sound of tires on pavement and an engine shutting off before he felt hands on his shoulders and a soft voice speaking to him.

 

“Josh, hey, it’s just me,” Tyler said, crouching down next to him. 

 

“Fuck,” he whispered, looking up to Tyler, trying to get through the jumbled thoughts in his head.

 

“Are you drunk?” Tyler asked, suddenly angry again at being woken up for something like this. Josh looked away and down to the pavement. He shrugged his shoulders.

 

“I’m so sorry, Tyler, I don’t even know. Things were fine and I started to panic and I couldn’t breathe and I wanted to forget. I just wanted to forget but it made it worse. I can’t breathe, Tyler, I can’t,” he stopped talking, reaching his hands up to tangle them in his hair and pull on it until the only thing he could focus on was the pain.

 

“Hey, Josh, what’s wrong, please talk to me?” Tyler asked gently, his anger dissipating even though he was annoyed at being woken up.

 

“I don’t even know, Tyler. I can’t fucking think.”

 

“Well, start with why you drank in the first place,” Tyler said, sitting down and waiting for Josh to catch his breath.

 

He sat there for awhile, eyes wide in his panic as he tried to think. Multitasking was hard. Thinking and remembering not to hyperventilate was challenging.

 

“Fuck, I was having a good day, I swear, I was happy and then I saw something online about all these people who were transgender and they all just fucking  _ knew.  _ They could all say they were female-to-male trans or male-to-female trans and they could just fucking put a label to it. There were people who were like ‘yeah, I’m agender’ or some other thing like that but they fucking knew. Then I’m sitting here and I,” the words stuck in his throat until he’s choking over them and coughing. He wiped at his eyes, hating how pathetic he was being. 

 

“It’s okay to be confused, no one’s saying you need to know right now. You don’t have to label yourself,” Tyler said, the words didn’t help, they just pissed Josh off.

 

“Except I do!” He yelled, pulling at his hair again, “I  _ have  _ to have a fucking label because I can’t stand this in between bullshit. I don’t care if I turn out to be trans or if I am genderqueer or agender or whatever the fuck it is, I don’t care, I just need to fucking know. I can’t sit here and be questioning this kind of thing. Every time I introduce myself and say ‘hey, my name’s Josh,’ I have to pause and sit down because is my name even Josh? Am I even a fucking male? Fuck,” Josh stopped and pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the tightness swell again. He felt like he was suffocating, felt like he was about to throw up, felt so many different things all at once and he couldn’t even accurately explain it. 

 

Tyler was startled by the outburst. He’d known that Josh was trying to figure himself out but he’d never known that Josh was this anxious about it.

 

“What do you want me to do?” Tyler asked. Josh just shrugged and sucked in a shaky breath as he tried to calm down again.

 

“I don’t know. I don’t know that you can even do anything,” Josh said, feeling everything leave his body all at once. The empty numb that replaced it wasn’t any better though.

 

“Josh,” Tyler said and the name sounded so broken.

 

“I just want to know. I want to be able to say ‘yes, this is me,’ but I can’t. I can’t do anything because I keep thinking that what if it’s wrong. What if I think today, yes, I’m a female and I go to the doctors and I get hormones and I start transitioning and sure, things are great but what about next week? What if in a week I realize that I’m not really a female and that I’ve just made the biggest fucking mistake,” he tried explaining, knowing there was a gender that was in between that he could identify as and not have this problem. Tyler graciously pointed that out.

 

“Josh, you do know there’s such thing as genderfluid and it’s exactly what you described?” Tyler said gently, not wanting to upset Josh again.

 

“You can wake up one day and feel like a girl and then a week later feel like a male or you could even not feel like anything. The best part is, that’s okay. That can be you. Maybe not even that at all. Maybe you’re just genderqueer and you’re a combination of both, that’s still okay. Josh, you’re my best friend, no matter what you decide, I’m still gonna be here. I’ll do my very best to get down your pronouns and whatever name you choose to go by.”

 

Josh felt sick again as he listened to it, he didn’t even know why.

 

“I know, I fucking know. I just wish I could do something. Yeah, I can say I’m genderfluid and I have been lately and that’s fine but what if one day I’m female. I don’t look that way at all. I can shave my beard off and then I still don’t look female. Then the rest of that day I feel like shit cause my body doesn’t match my gender and I’m stuck with that. I’ve got a dick and no boobs and I’m not a fucking female.”

 

Tyler had no argument for that and he couldn’t even understand where Josh was coming from. He didn’t know how to help. He stayed silent instead, trying to find something that he could say that could help Josh in any way.

 

“I just wish I could be one gender. I wish I could be either male or female cause then I know. There’s something I can do about it then. But genderfluid? I can’t go back and forth changing my whole body to match my gender, I’ll always be stuck with this gross feeling, I just can’t.”

 

Josh’s panic had stopped but he was left with the tired, empty that followed it. He was sitting on the pavement, watching awrapper drift in the wind. His chest was still tight but there was no panic leftover. Just uncomfortable pain that reminded him of why he was here and how out of place he felt.

 

“Come on,” Tyler whispered, helping Josh up, “Let’s get you home.”

 

Josh walked to the car and sat down, thankful for the warmth and the break from the wind. He was thankful for the kindness Tyler showed him, even at three in the morning.

 

But unfortunately, none of those things changed how messed up Josh felt inside. None of those fixed the issues he was having with himself. He still got home and looked in the mirror and felt so completely wrong that he had no idea what to do. He touched his cheek, feeling the stubble under his fingers and then touched his chest and how flat it was. He looked at his appearance in the mirror and then turned to the toilet as stomach acid rose fast. 

 

Josh fell asleep on the bathroom floor, not feeling like he could sleep in his own bed because that’s where Josh slept and he wasn’t Josh.

 

He tried to find a name for who he was. He? Was he even a he? Maybe ‘they’ was something that was more suiting. 

 

He, she, they, and Josh (Josh?) was throwing up again.

  
Josh (Josh?) spent the rest of the night (early morning) arguing with himself (themself?). But in the end nothing changed. He (she?) was still just as confused and frustrated as before. Stuck with no label and a frustration that left them (he? she?) back at square one, feeling so small and insignificant and out of place.


End file.
